5 ms·
Ok, sorry, now I'm on the next lesson: http://chesscademy.com/exercises/skewer-the-shish-kebab http://chesscademy.com/exercises/skewer-the-shish-kebab This hin
by jfarmer 13y ago
Ok, sorry, now I'm on the next lesson: http://chesscademy.com/exercises/skewer-the-shish-kebab http://chesscademy.com/exercises/skewer-the-shish-kebab
This hint is silly. It talks as if I've already made a move, but I haven't made any moves. This is totally confusing.
Update: Ok, I read the Wikipedia article and it mentioned that long-range pieces can skewer. That's interesting. I had never thought of grouping the pieces into long-range and short-range attackers, but that makes total sense. I see now that both pins and skewers are really tactics for long-range pieces. They're ways for you to control parts of the board "at a distance" by forcing your opponent to move or stay put.
There might be situations where a short-range piece could pin or skewer, but I can also see how that would be more precarious. Both pieces being pinned or skewered would have to be close together and the attacking piece would have to be close to both. This means you'd probably be in "enemy territory" and your attacking piece more vulnerable to attack.
With a long-range piece you don't have to worry about any of this. Your opponent would have to enter your territory to halt the pin or the skewer.
That seems like an important distinction to understand. I look back on some of the things I was doing in previous exercise and they make no sense in light of this distinction, e.g., moving pawns around like a monkey trying to pin and skewer things.
- pjungwir 13y agoGood insight re long- and short-range pieces. A pawn can never pin or skewer because it can only attack one space away. Also a knight cannot pin or skewer, because the squares it attacks are not in a straight line. (Pawns and knights have a "fork" tactic though.)
- jfarmer 13y agoAs a beginner this was totally invisible to me and nevertheless it's critical to understanding why pinning and skewering are valuable: you can control your opponent's behavior from a distance. This is the curse of expertise. Experts have internalized the most important distinctions so well they're like air. Beginners haven't internalized any distinctions and therefore couldn't possibly see that their struggle is a product of not having them. They can't even express the concept of air. "Just breath! Inhale! Fill your lungs up!" the expert says, as the beginner coughs and grabs at their throat.
- socillion 13y agoFirst, some context: I haven't played or watched chess at all in about 8 years (quit when I was 12) but before that I was a competitive player. I did all the "moving past the basics" problems apart from the opening moves, and found all but 1 or 2 trivial. The long-winded descriptions didn't really help at all. Something that might help a ton to grasp the concepts is to provide annotated example boards where the same technique is demonstrated. It feels like a situation that is very accurately described by "a picture is worth a thousand words". I'm very curious how a beginner would approach a simple ending like King+Rook vs King.